LET ME CALL MY REAL HUSBAND
He felt a hard lump in his throat. A compact stuff very stiff! He did not think the barricading thing would go, if he tried swallowing saliva…
And was there any need to force the stuff down into his digestive system, when he was sure it would not metabolize?
Perhaps, he had been trying to enact a little drama with all these thoughts of swallowing what he knew was neither a piece of fish bone nor chunk of mischievous meat hedging the way for incoming food.
But what should he consider right now and carry it out? Bang his head hard against the waiting walls of his one room or the much safer giving of self several hard knocks on the same head?
Simple and short, Anita–The Virgin of His Citations-was responsible for the curious lump in his throat…
A One-Time Symbol of Maidenhood and Quintessence of Innocence now opting for A Depraved Whore - Anita, of all a sudden, began to throw him staggering punches- started cheating on him- nay, doubly cheating on him as well as parading an itchy private that just would not stop until it was serviced!
A case of mere idle suspicion?
“No! Rather that of a now-screaming, now-yelling suspicion loudly telling him “Don’t doubt it! Don’t doubt me!”
Michael had not a prior knowledge of these now development. Sensibly, he began to suspect something had gone amiss, when he received a text message from Anita, not thanking him for a one-thousand-naira recharge card he had sent her on request but warning him not to let mother know about it!.
“Ah! Is my Young, Virgin beginning to amass secrets… And isn’t her Mum terribly fond of me?
Michael Norom could not see how possibly Anita’s mother brazenly trying to match them would be offended, if she got to know that he had spared her a recharge card of that amount…
Michael had to sum himself up as Pitiable Receiver, after a prized recharge card gift for A Beloved of a thankless warning against a mention of it within her mother’s hearing.
That night, Michael Norom had a worried sleep. He would no longer put off another visit to their house. Whatever it was he did not know about Anita’s latest fancies, would start tumbling out, once he got to their house for lingered glances at her.
Next day, the Tuesday of 15th May 2012, Michael was at Anita’s house, flesh and blood. Anita’s had since acquired flighty manners. Not as much did she bother to properly welcome Michael as grab his handset and scamper off to another part of their spacious parlor to – as she put it – “Call my Real husband!”
At first, Michael was inclined to dismiss the remark as a playful one funnily aiming to awaken all the jealousies in him. Not until he went after her to retrieve his handset and she refused, disappeared into their inner room, eventually discussed with a male voice and later returned to play down the obvious scene with attacks on Michael for having got another girlfriend.
“I don’t seem to get you” Michael blandly replied.
“No, you won’t” Anita lashed out. “But while I was trying to get a call through with your phone, one Miss Agatha beeped your number…Who the hell is she?
Michael Noron could only wordlessly collect his handset from Anita and ponder the unfolded drama.
Then, instinct told him to check Anita’s previous text message and go once more through the page. Behold! Her name against the text had disappeared!
“Old Medusa!” gasped Michael, as he kept weighing the wisdom in hooking up to any grown-up neighbor of Miriam, who would kindly tell him what had been going on…So disturbing how Anita The Sinless up to January 2012 had become adept at mischievous use of handsets…
“Roguishly deleting her name against a sent odd text to disown it”
It was all stage acting Michael Norom warmly offering to stay back and indulge the company of Anita at their three-bedroom flat. His heart had begun to beat the wrong way, progressively courting Arrhythmias and soon started aching in all its chambers.
Then, slyly, Michael asked Anita whether she eventually spoke with “her Husband” over the phone whereupon she replied that he was unreachable for having, probably, gone for a fellowship"
Oh! He’s a born-again Christian,!”
“Yeah. Your very opposite… And he’s younger”
Michael had got what he wished, even as he widened eyes of true and false admiration for Anita’s New Guy with a better C V.
“Now is the clear time to quit!” he advised self.
But Anita said to smuggle in one more little point she would be glad if he accepted in good faith. It was supposed to be a plea or, more correctly, helpful advice to Michael not to try her number between 10:00am and 6:00pm, except on Sundays..
“My phone would most likely be switched off during the said hours of Monday to Saturday or I wouldn’t bother to receive any call that still went through.”
“But why?“
Michael was visibly shaken, all the plausible dirty guesses the human mind could conjure up in respect of a phone purposely switched off by a woman lover fighting for his unconditional acceptance…
“You’ve been sort of thinking” Anita simply remarked, after noticing that Michael had been doing exactly but still she went ahead to matter-of-factly tell him that she would always be “Sort of Busy” between the said hours of the said days.
Back at his teacher’s room, Michael tried to piece together the whole jigsaw puzzle with a mental strength that was not really there. What he rather had was the physical strength he should put to sensible use, for example, by dashing into their bathroom with the coldest bucket of water that should be able to cool his overheating brain or freeze his monstrous worries.
Pursued this Mad Michael did by up-ending a four-liter can of freezing water into his ten-liter bucket and making for their cubicle of a bathroom.
But in the cubicle, Michael, mid-course, found a moment to summon before him Anita’s father’s sitting room, the whole imposing spacious thing uprooting and forcing into the cubicle. Michael could clearly see all over again the heroically hung generous picture of Anita’s Dad and Mum laughing heartily after their wedding…A picture relevantly hung directly opposite the front entrance to the sitting room…
“But where’s the man? I’d never set my visitor’s eyes on him!”
Michael had heard from unauthorized sources that Anita’s father, for more than a decade now, had vanished, deserting his wife, Anita’s mother. No reason given, let alone a bad one collected. The sources while not alluding to acts of infidelity to Anita’s father by the woman would not excuse her consistent meddling with a lifestyle inconsistent with that or A Truly Happily Married Woman.
To Michael, it meant, all the same, that he too was going to run for it!
“No reason to be dropped let alone that a bad one fell”
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